let her sing if it eases all her pain
by Party.In.My.Tummy
Summary: "I've known you since we were two years old. What the hell happened to that girl because this," he says as he waves his hand up and down her body "is not her
1. Part One

**Disclaimer: Don't own Glee or anything related to it. I'm just borrowing for the time being.**

**This is based, somewhat loosely, on the song "Let Her Cry" by Hootie and the Blowfish. It's somewhat AU, because I like the idea of Puck and Rachel growing up together, but the fact that he's a total a-hole in high school remains in tact so… I guess it's partially AU and partially canon. Sort of. It is what it is.**

**Part One – Chicago, January 2017**

If anyone had told Noah Puckerman six years ago that he'd graduate with honors and be accepted with a music scholarship to Columbia University, he might have just laughed in that person's face. But, that's just what happened. Then, six weeks into his first semester his roommate suggests that he go to an open mic night at a nearby club. Puck, of course, thinks this is the most moronic idea in the history of ideas, but decides to go anyone. After all, chicks totally dig a guy who can play a guitar and play it well. The next morning he's contacted by a scout from the, then, up-and-coming label, Kerosene Records. The rest, they say, is history.

He spends the next two years in a writing room, working with vocal coaches and building a local following. The next eighteen months are spent laying down track after track, making changes wherever may be deemed necessary and playing several small concerts. The fact that he does all of this while still maintaining A's and B's at Columbia makes him, for the first time in _years_, the apple of his mother's eye. Of course, this also means he doesn't have as much time for the ladies but he finds he doesn't mind all that much. He gets to take a semester off from the studio while the finalities are made and four days before he graduates with a Business degree and a minor in Music Composition, Puck's debut album is blaring through the stereos of every major music retailer in the country.

Now, roughly a year and a half after his album dropped, he's taking the stage as an opening act. He, Noah Puckerman, is an opening act. His first stop on the forty city tour is Chicago, and he doesn't think he's ever seen a crowd this big (they say over fifty thousand). If it wouldn't make him such a pussy, he'd willingly admit that he was terrified. He knows he has no reason to be, because really, if all else fails he could just rip off his shirt and all the ladies (and the dudes, if they're into that) would still get their money's worth just staring at him. But, still, the fact that over fifty thousand people are in this arena to hear his music, it's almost a dream come true.

He steps on to the platform that will bring him up onto the stage from the trapdoor and take a deep breath. The tech guy lets him know that there's five minutes to show time and the only thought crosses his mind is that he needs to hear his mom's voice before he goes deaf from the screaming and cheers of the audience. Whipping out his cell, he speed dials number two and hears three rings before she answers.

"Noah! Aren't you supposed to be on stage?" Naomi says excitedly into the phone.

"Yeah, Ma. I'm bout to go on right now." Puck chuckles softly, hearing the muffled chants already filling the stadium. "Just wanted to let you know that the house on the beach in Miami you've always dreamed about? This crowd is paying for it. And tell Kara she's coming with me to New York with me when I go next weekend."

"Noah, don't spoil her."

"It's not everyday your bratty kid sister turns thirteen, Ma." Puck whines and can practically hear the eye roll his mother is giving him. "I wanna do something nice for her."

"Do your show, Noah."

"I'm not gonna fuck this up, right?" Puck asks, letting his nerves get the best of him for the first time all night.

"Noah, you've done enough of that in your life. I've seen you perform, there's no way you can mess this up." Naomi answers honestly, and Puck breathes a sigh of relief.

"Thanks, Ma."

"I'm so proud of you, Noah." Puck beams as she says this, doesn't care who can see that he looks like a complete moron. "Go get 'em, baby."

Puck hangs up the phone as the techie tells him there's only two minutes til show time. He cracks his neck, then his knuckles and stretches his arms one last time before the platform starts to rise and the roar of the crowd blasts his eardrums into oblivion. He almost hates the way that his stomach flip-flops in his stomach, except that it's completely awesome and the only feeling that rivals hearing his mom say she's proud of him.

He lets it cross his mind, as it often does when he's about to perform, that if he'd known in high school that it could feel like this, performing and singing and stuff, he would have been a lot less of a jerk. The thought is gone almost as soon it pops up, though, because well over ten thousand other women are totally screaming his name on the floor in front of the stage and they're at the forefront of his mind now. Them, and not forgetting the lyrics to the songs he's about to sing.

"Good evening, Chicago!" He shouts into the microphone and the show begins.

* * *

Five days later it's Friday and he's picking Kara up from the Kennedy center airport and he can't remember the last time he saw her look so excited. He swears she looks about five inches taller than she did when he saw her last month, or maybe that was a few years ago when he left for school. Either way, she's practically skipping up to him and before he knows it her arms are flung around his neck and she's screaming "thank you" over and over again as people around him start snapping pictures. He's pretty sure those will be on the internet later, and he's also pretty sure his mom won't be too happy that there's pictures of her thirteen year old online, but it's worth it to see his baby sister so happy.

They grab her small suitcase and then head out to grab a cab. As they step onto the sidewalk, her eyes light up about a thousand times more, but that could also just be a reflection of all the lights. It's only six, but it's already dim enough that the windows are all lit up and until now, he'd never appreciated it that much. Puck _had_ just planned to go to the hotel and order room service and spend the next day being a tourist before soundcheck. But, there's no way he can see her that excited and not take her out to do something tonight.

As they get into a cab, she rolls down the window and starts snapping pictures of the buildings and signs and he takes out his cell and starts making calls. Kara seems pretty annoyed by this until she hears the words "one of the Disney ones" and "yeah, she wears a size three". By the time they've pulled up to the hotel Puck's secured them two tickets to "The Little Mermaid" and is having a dress brought to her to change into. Kara squeals in excitement and tells him he's the best brother ever before running to the bathroom to check her hair and put on make up. He's not sure when she starting wearing make up, but when she steps out with just mascara and lipgloss he decides it doesn't really matter.

On their way to the theatre she starts chattering on and on about whatever and he just nods and smiles where he thinks would be appropriate until…

"And then Melissa told me that Aaron Mitchell likes me! Can you believe it? Then-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Puck cuts her off and the look on her face tells him she knows she's said too much. "Who the fuck is Aaron Mitchell?"

"Don't tell Mom, ok?" She says quietly, as if their mother can hear their conversation all the way from Lima. Puck doesn't say anything so she continues. "He's the cutest, most popular boy at school and he plays baseball and he's so nice and he asked me if I wanted to go to the movies with him when I get back from New York!"

"I think I'm gonna have to tell Ma, Kar, because I'm gonna kill that little shit."

"Noah…"

"Nope, no way you're winning this, Kara. You ain't going out with some little fuck with a name like Aaron Mitchell. Scratch that, you're not going out with anyone. Just… nope, not gonna happen."

"What ever happened to siblings being on each other's side?" Kara folds her arms over her chest and Puck's positive the whole "best brother ever" business is all out the window now.

"What ever happened to Barbie dolls and unicorns and whatever the hell else little girls like?" Puck shoots back, the whole conversation pissing him off more and more by the second.

"I'm not a little girl, anymore!" Kara snaps, but she's pouting and Puck wants to point out that it's a pretty childish thing to do. He doesn't get to, though, because she doesn't stop talking. "I'm not, I'm a teenager. And you can't tell me what to do!"

"The hell I can't." Puck's flat out glaring at her now as she huffs and turns to face out of the window. "You're too young to date, Kara, that's all there is to it."

"You had a girlfriend when you were thirteen!"

"And you're not gonna be a whore like her, Kara."

"You are such an asshole." Kara huffs as she slumps lower in her seat.

Puck smirks because though he knows he'll eventually lose the war, he definitely just won the battle. Within minutes they're pulling up to the theatre and Kara forgets she was mad at all when she jumps out of the cab and smiles at the lit-up sign that reads "The Little Mermaid". Puck tells her in no uncertain terms that she is not to sing along no matter how tempted she is. They walk hand in hand into the theatre and Puck is silently grateful that the show is able to render her speechless for a couple hours.

* * *

The next day, after they've already spent close to six hours shopping (her picking whatever and him paying for it), they're back in the hotel getting ready to leave for sound check and then the concert. Kara's in the shower while he's flipping through the channels when there's a knock on the door.

"Housekeeping!" A female's voice says from the other side of the door, but Puck's sure it's some bitch paparazzi trying to snap a picture so he doesn't respond.

"Housekeeping!" The voice says again and Puck still refuses to answer. He's learned that if you don't give them what they want, they'll go away eventually. But this woman, whoever she is, doesn't seem to be doing that because in a matter of seconds he hears the lock click and before he has a chance to react the door is opening and a maid is walking into the room. She's got her back to him as she pulls a cart of cleaning supplies, so she's obviously unaware of the fact that the room is not unoccupied. He's checking out her ass (it's nice, he notices) and not paying much attention to anything else until he hears Kara say.

"Perv, much?"

The maid stops dead in her tracks and doesn't move for a good thirty seconds and when he finally whips around, Puck swears he's gotta be seeing shit because there is absolutely, positively _no way_ that he's seeing who he's seeing.

"Rachel?" Kara is squealing and then running up to Rachel and wrapping her arms around her and jumping excitedly. Rachel just has a deer in headlights look on her face and says nothing. If the situation weren't so messed up, Puck would laugh at the fact that his thirteen year old sister is already taller than a twenty-three year old Rachel Berry. It's a few more minutes before Rachel actually says anything and Puck is shocked when all that comes out of her mouth is a single syllable.

"Hi." She's not looking him in the eyes, and it doesn't escape Puck's attention but when he starts to really look at her, he thinks saying something about it will makes things more awkward. She's thinned out, how he doesn't know because she was a twig in high school. Her cheeks aren't as full, and her eyes don't shine. She just looks tired and broken and Puck's so confused by seeing THE Rachel Berry like this that he does all he can think to do.

"How are you doing, Berry? Haven't heard from you since… Christ, since you left for this damn city."

"Not many people have." Rachel says and finally looks at his face. He sees the dark circles under her eyes the slight redness to her eyes and can just tell she spends a lot of time crying these days. "Heard from me, I mean. I hear you're doing well for yourself."

"Just lucky, I guess." Puck shrugs starts to move towards her slowly. She reminds him of a dog they'd known when they were kids. It had been beat so much, and starved so often that it flinched when you started to move towards it. That's exactly what Rachel does when he moves to wrap his arms around her, she flinches. Immediately he wants to know who the hell has ever hurt her so he can introduce them to his fists, but instead he just squeezes her tight and rubs her back.

"What are you doing?" She mumbles against his chest, her arms still at her sides and her whole body visible stiff.

"You look like shit, B." Puck says, looking at his sister over Rachel's shoulder to see that she's got a confused look on her face. "You look like you could use one of these."

Rachel doesn't say anything, just lets him hug her until he's done hugging her. When she pulls back and looks at him, her eyes are glassy and Puck silently prays to God that she doesn't start crying. Instead, she just apologizes and pushes her cart out into the hallway as quickly as possible and then she's gone. Puck just stares at the door until Kara informs him that they need to be at sound check in forty-five minutes and he still needs to shower. He spends the next forty-five minutes, and really the rest of the night, trying to figure out why the hell Rachel Berry was working as a maid and what had caused her to be so… broken.

* * *

After he drops Kara off at the airport and has everything packed and ready to get back on the road, he goes to the front desk of the hotel and asks is Rachel Berry is working. The concierge looks at him as if he's lost his mind, but has Rachel paged anyway. Its fifteen minutes later that Rachel finally shows up and Puck feels his heart constrict when he sees that she's got a bruise on her face that she's tried feebly to hide with makeup. She freezes when she sees him and he can tell she wants to run in the opposite direction but she continues towards him.

"Good morning, Noah." She says quietly, her eyes on the wall behind him. "What are you doing here?"

"Getting you to play hooky." Puck says seriously. He means it; she's going to explain some things to him.

"We don't all have the luxury of a career that allows us to frolic through the city just for the hell of it, Noah." He's sure she means for this to sound angry and spiteful, but she just sounds sad.

"Well, I've already talked to the manager, you've got the rest of the day off." Her eyes snap to his and for a fraction of a second, her eyes light up. "And you're coming with me, and we're gonna catch up."

"Noah, I don't think-"

"I didn't ask what you thought." Puck cuts her off. "I'm telling you, you're coming with me and we're gonna catch up. So, as sexy as that maid outfit is, go change."

Rachel looks him over for a second; he assumes she's trying to decide if he's serious. She's must come to the conclusion that he is because she does as he says and in twenty minutes she's back in the lobby and he can tell she's applied more make up to the bruise on her face. He offers her his hand, but she just folds her arms across her chest and heads for the revolving doors.

Once out on the streets Puck hails a cab and practically dives into it to avoid being snapped by the paparazzi that are waiting for him outside of The Plaza. Rachel seems terrified of the cameras, which Puck knows is a complete 180 of the Rachel he'd known since he was two. She's always loved the cameras and being in the spotlight. The Rachel he'd known would have been so excited that she'd be in a tabloid, her name out there in the world. But this Rachel, she's so unsure of herself that it makes him sick to his stomach.

He waits until the cab pulls away from the curb before he says anything to her.

"What the hell, Rachel?"

She puts her head down, but doesn't say anything, so he continues.

"I've known you since we were two years old, Rachel. What the hell happened to _that_ girl because this," he says as he waves his hand up and down her body "is _not_ her. And why the fuck do you work at a hotel? What happened to Broadway? You should be ruling that stage by now."

"Well, you can't always get what you want, Noah." He's sure this is meant to sound bitter and angry, but she just sounds sad. "And I don't know why you care so much, you hated me most of our lives."

"I never hated you!" Puck shouts before he remembers they're in a cab. "Sorry, I don't wanna yell at you, but shit, Rachel! I'm not the same asshole I was in high school. If I were, don't you think I would have just pretended to never see you at the hotel? I mean, fuck."

Rachel rolls her eyes and stares out the window. Before either of them knows it they're at central park and she's out of the cab so fast he almost doesn't have enough time to pay the driver and catch up. Thankfully, she's still a good foot shorter than him and he's in top shape.

"Hey!" he grabs her firmly by the elbow and she jerks away from him so hard it makes his shoulder hurt.

"Don't touch me!" She shrieks and everyone around them turns to see what's going on. Puck raises his hands in submission but he knows she can see the look on his face.

"Who hit you?" He doesn't expect her to answer, he's not shocked at all when she just keeps walking. "Rachel, it's not like I'm gonna go tell anyone if you don't want me to, but you don't deserve to be treated like shit. Whoever this guy, you don't need him."

"It's not like that…" She mumbles. He wants to ask her what the hell that means, but she doesn't give him a chance. "You wouldn't understand, Noah. You got to have all your dreams come true, I got told I wasn't good enough. Over and over and over again, audition after audition there was always someone better. That's all I've heard since I've been here! 'You have a beautiful voice, but so do thousands of other girls' and 'you're very talented, but you're just not what we're looking for', and my absolute favorite, 'you don't really _look_ the part.' And you can only hear the words 'you're not good enough' so many times before you stop caring. My only dream for as long as I can remember has been to be a Broadway star. That's all I know, all I've ever been good at, and it's never enough."

"Well, whoever said that to you is a fucking moron, Rachel." Puck can't hear anymore of this. Rachel's probably the single most talented person he knows and when he tells her this she just scoffs.

"Noah, you don't get it and I don't expect you to. Can you just leave it alone? Please?" She doesn't give him a chance to answer, though, because in a flash she's gone. He's on a tight schedule, or else he'd follow her and keep asking until he figures out what's going on, but as it is he needs to be on the road in less than an hour and needs to get back to the hotel and check out. He's thankful, in that moment that the tour is only three months long, because there's no way he's letting this go forever.

* * *

The tour's been over for three weeks and he's already tired of being at home. Everyday for the past three-and-a-half months he's wondered what's happening in New York. More than once he's thought about saying something to her dads, ask if they know anything, but he doesn't want them to worry if they don't. So instead, after three weeks too long with his mother and sister, he calls the information hotline to see if Rachel is listed. She is and, according to this lady, she lives in the Bronx. He writes all of the information down and books a flight immediately.

Two days later he's landing in New York and catching a cab to Rachel's building. He doesn't have an exact plan of action, but he needs to see for himself that she's ok. When the cab drops him off, he makes note of the fact that the neighborhood Rachel lives in is a lot more ghetto than he'd pictured, even for the Bronx. He checks to see if her name is on the list of occupants so he can have her buzz him up but she's not there. Well, fuck. He sits on the steps for almost an hour before someone finally comes out, allowing him to slip in. He goes to the super's office and asks what apartment belongs to Rachel Berry's and is shocked by what he's told.

"You better not be bringing none of them drugs and shit into my building! What she does is her business but I won't have dealers coming in and out of here!"

"I- uh, no, sir, nothing like that. I'm a friend from high school is all."

"Better be telling the truth, boy. She's in number 4E." Puck thanks the old man and hopes he has Rachel confused with someone else, her roommate perhaps. Those hopes are thrown all to hell, though because her door's unlocked and when he walks in, she passed out on the floor with an empty bottle of Jack in her hand and a bag of weed on the coffee table in front of her. He wants to cry, if he's being honest, but he doesn't. He just picks her up and goes down the hall until he gets to her room (the only room in the house besides the bathroom) and lays her on her stomach. When he starts to look around, he sees a pain pill on her bedside table split in half and crushed for snorting, and a few more empty bottles of various alcohols. "Holy fucking shit…"

He goes around the room picking up the bottles and tossing them out, and without hesitation goes through her drawers and is horrified to see how many empty pill bottles he finds. It pisses him off that she hates her life so much that she's doing shit like this. He hasn't even had a proper conversation with her since running into her and he can tell she's miserable. When he gets to a drawer filled with bags of weed and a few of white powder, his stomach drops. He just stands there staring at the contents of the drawer forever. He doesn't move a single muscle until he hears Rachel stirring in her bed.

"Noah?" She asks when she first sees him, and Puck turns to face her. When she's done rubbing her eyes, she sits up slowly and it's clear she's used to hangovers. She grabs the uncrushed half of the pill and dry swallows it before actually looking him in the eyes. "Don't hate me, ok?"

Puck sighs and runs a hand down his face before he moves to sit on the foot of her bed. He wants to yell, tell her she's stupid for fucking up her life like this. That just because some directors are douche lords who don't know how phenomenal she is doesn't mean she needs to resort to shit like this. He really, really, _really_ wants to yell, but he doesn't. He pulls her so that she's wrapped in his arms and lets her cry, lets the tears flood through his cotton shirt and soak his skin. This new Rachel is broken and hurt and for whatever reason, he just wants to absorb all of the pain that she's been carrying around. Instead of asking questions or demanding she give him an explanation, he just sits there and lets her cry.

**This is written in three parts, and I'd love to hear what you guys think of it. Part 2 will pick up in December 2017.**

**I would just like to note that I do not advocate the abuse of illegal substances, perscription and over-the-counter drugs, or alcohol. If you have an addiction or are depressed, I strongly urge you to talk to someone, _anyone_, that you trust. The first step to healing is admitting that something's wrong, the next step is to talk about it.**


	2. Part Two

**Part Two – December 2017**

It's been eleven months since Puck found Rachel working as a maid in a New York City hotel instead of in a theatre. It's been seven months since he went back to New York to see how shitty she'd let her life become. And it's been two months since his last visit, and here he is again while Kerosene finalizes the new album. He's got a photoshoot next week, but tonight his only mission is to check on Rachel. He's seen her several times and kept in contact, but even though she tells him she's doing a lot better he has a sneaking suspicion that that's changed since his last visit.

And he's got a surprise for her, too. Two days ago he terminated the lease on his L.A. apartment and is moving to New York full-time. Well, not _for_ her. She's not the reason he's moving out here, but it helps that he can keep a closer watch on her when he's in the same city. But Kerosene's main building is in New York, so he justifies that he's moving for work.

He's in a cab on the way to the Bronx when he feels his phone buzz in his pocket. Pulling it out, he consciously chooses to ignore the call. Naomi has been psychotic about New York ever since he came back for the first time. The pictures of Rachel and him back in January didn't even catch her face, so no one knew who she was, but his mother was convinced that she must be having (another) illegitimate child of his if he insists on going back and forth to New York all the time. He wasn't about to tell his mother, Temple Gossip Extraordinaire, about Rachel, so he generally avoided talking about the Big Apple all together.

He pays the cabbie and steps out onto the sidewalk in front of Rachel's building as his phone rings again. It's Kara this time, but he's not as dumb as his mother seems to think he is. He thinks about hitting ignore (again), but he also knows that if his mother is getting Kara in on this she won't stop bugging him until he answers.

"Yes, mother?" He doesn't even try hiding the annoyance in his voice. He almost, almost, wants to laugh when he hears the two passing the phone back and forth and arguing over who will actually ask anything. Kara must win because in a minute or so his mother's shrill voice is blaring in his ear drum.

"Noah David Puckerman! You tell me what you're doing in New York this instant, or so help me-"

"Jesus fucking Christ, Ma! I'm not deaf! I can hear you perfectly fine!"

"Don't you speak to me that way, young man." He knows Naomi's pissed, but honestly, he doesn't care anymore. That woman's been driving him insane for months now. "Now, tell me who this girl is that you're just dropping everything to be with. Your manager says you've given up your apartment in LA and plan on moving to the city! Have you lost your mind, Noah?"

"The label's main building and studio are here, mother, and in case you don't recall: I lived here for four years in college. Maybe I've just decided I miss it, is that so hard to believe."

"Yes." He hears Kara in the background voicing her agreement and as much as he loves his little sister, he wants to reach through the phone and punch her right now. She hasn't mentioned anything about Rachel to anyone, but she also doesn't know much except that she's not on Broadway like everyone thought she'd be. "Noah, I just want to understand what is in that city that keeps taking you away from me."

"When I figure it out, I'll let you know." He doesn't give her anytime to respond, just hangs up and turns the phone off before he rings the buzzer to let Rachel know he's here. She doesn't even respond, just buzzes him in and he's up the stairs in a matter of minutes. He doesn't bother knocking; if she buzzed him in she knows she's coming so he just lets himself and is pleasantly surprised by what he sees.

Rachel's sitting cross-legged on the floor with a newspaper spread out in front of her and a highlighter in her right hand. She doesn't even look up at him as she makes mark after mark on the paper. Puck sets his duffle bag down by the door and walks around the coffee table to sit on the couch behind her. She gestures wildly with her left arm towards the kitchen and when he follows with his eyes he sees that she's already got cartons of Chinese food waiting for him. He's in the kitchen and back to the couch with the sweet and sour pork so fast it makes Rachel smirk a little. After a couple careful bites, he leans over her shoulder to see what it is that she's circling: apartments.

"You're moving?" Puck puts the pork down and snatches the paper from her to see where it is she's planning on moving. There's a few apartments circled in Brooklyn, one that's still in the Bronx and he sees one dramatic circle around a place in Jersey. "How are you gonna afford to move, B?"

Rachel's quiet for a minute, and he's terrified she's going to tell him that one of her "friends" is getting her a place. Finally, though, she puts the cap back on the highlighter and turns to look at him.

"I got a new job. They're paying me a whole lot more than I was making at that damn hotel. I'm teaching music and a performing arts high school."

"You're singing again?" Puck perked up and could tell her looked like a complete moron right now but Rachel singing again was news of monumental proportions.

"I said music, not vocals." Rachel glared at him and Puck could feel the color draining from his face. "I'm teaching cello and piano."

"Can you even hold a cello?" Puck prays that's enough to lighten the mood and when her shoulders relax and her eyes soften he knows he's done his job.

"I'll have you know, Puckerman, that I took cello lessons from age six until I graduated high school, thank you very much."

Puck grins as she continues to flip through the pages and circles a few more ads before she tells him to help himself and goes into the bedroom to call around. Half an hour later she's back in the living room asking him if he'd like to come look at a few apartments with her.

After they've seen seven apartments in six hours, Rachel's signing the lease and handing over a deposit check for an apartment in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. It's a small building, so the apartments are a bit bigger, and the one she's got the keys for certainly is bigger than the one she's in now, and the neighborhood's better so Puck's pretty satisfied.

They stop at a café they spotted a few blocks away and they each get a pastry and some coffee before venturing out onto the streets. It's late, and the old Rachel would never allow herself to be eating carbs so late at night, but Puck's glad this Rachel is allowing herself to eat at all, considering how thin she still was.

He asks her about the school she's teaching at and she says it's great, that she's only been working there a few weeks and that the kids were incredible. She says it almost (yeah, he caught that 'almost') makes her miss sharing the same dreams as them. He tells her it's not too late and she scoffs and gives him an eye roll. He knows better by now than to argue with her, but he's determined to take her back to Lima for the holidays and get her to sing. Apparently she hasn't done any of that in the past three years and there's just something… wrong about it. He figures she'd be a lot less unhappy if she did.

* * *

When they get back to the Bronx and are walking up the three flights of stairs, Noah sees her hand twitch several times within a few minutes and it makes him want to punch a whole through the paper thin walls. Once inside her apartment, he grabs his duffle bag and is out the door before she can say anything.

The entire cab right to the Plaza Puck tells himself that just because she's clearly craving some sort of fix – he's not even sure what, exactly, because when she finally owned up it turned out she had a lot more problems than coke, weed and vodka – doesn't mean she's going to give in. He checks into a room and after he's showered and is finally lying in bed he turns his cell back on. Eleven messages.

The first six are from his mother, threatening to never speak to him if he doesn't call her back immediately. Three are from Kara; the first two asking him to please call Naomi before she gave herself an ulcer, and the third asking him to please call her back because she's worried. The next one is just about three seconds of silence, but the last one definitely catches his attention.

"Hey, if this is Noah then you need to get down to The Big Apple. This is Joe, the owner. Rachel's here and she got trashed pretty quick. Some guy tried to take her home and she kept telling him he wasn't Noah. I haven't seen Rach in almost three months, and I usually just call her a cab but she keeps asking for you."

Puck jots down the address of the bar and is flying out of the bed and into a pair of jeans and a hoodie. He puts back on the aviators he's been wearing all day and goes downstairs to hail a cab. They pull up to the bar nearly forty minutes later and a tall, buff guy is holding Rachel by the elbow with a serious look on his face while she laughs hysterically about something. He jumps out of the cab and hands the guy a twenty, thanking him for helping her out before he ushers her into the cab.

She's still laughing as the driver pulls away from the curb and Puck would find it amusing in any other situation. Instead, he's snapping his fingers in front of her face until she acknowledges that he's there.

"I'm not a dog, Noah." She's slurring her words a bit, but she's starting to sober up a little so he doesn't tell her that.

"Jesus, Rachel…" He runs a hand through his short hair and leans back against the seat. "Why do you keep doing this, huh? You are so much better than all this shit."

"You sound like my fathers." Rachel's annoyed, he can tell, but she never mentions her fathers and he wants to know what's going on.

"What the hell does that mean?"

"The last time I spoke to them, they told me I was better than all this and that I needed to get my act together before they would speak to me again but they're the biggest reason my life is so fucked up right now."

Puck's still shocked at how often Drunk Rachel drops the F-bomb, but he doesn't interrupt because he wants to know.

"Literally since I was born they've done nothing but shove theatre and showbiz and music down my throat and it's all I've ever known and all I've ever loved. The only sport I've ever even been in is competitive ballet and the now the only thing I know how to be passionate about is gone and it's all their fault."

"They're not the ones who turned you down, Rachel." He points out

"But they didn't let me do anything else, either." Rachel says seriously, staring at the roof of the cab. "All they ever wanted was for me to be a star, so you can imagine they're disappointment that nobody here wants me."

Rachel tips her head back and closes her eyes and doesn't budge until the cab stops in front of the Plaza. She stares at the building and is obviously confused so Puck grabs her hand and pulls her inside and to the elevators. She's chattering on and on about what a good friend he was and how glad she was that he was in town for a while and he's planning his next big speech because this one needs to work.

She's sprawled out on his bed his shirt and sweatpants, eyes fluttering open and closed so he knows he can't say anything tonight, but he's going to make her see that she's not just killing herself, she's killing him, too.

The next morning when he wakes up, she's not in the bed but he hears the shower so he doesn't immediately go into panic mode. He walks into the kitchen area and starts a pot of coffee before resuming his place on the bed and flipping on the TV. He's drinking his second cup of coffee and halfway through 'Fight Club' when he realizes that the shower's still running and Rachel hasn't come out yet. He springs from the bed and bangs on the door frantically.

"Rach? You ok?"

"I'm fine! I'll be out in a minute!" She answers and he feels himself relax knowing she hasn't passed out in there. When she steps out of the bathroom, she's back in the jeans and sweater she was wearing the day before and carefully hands him the clothes she borrowed to sleep in. Without hesitation, he grabs her wrist and jerks the sleeve of the sweater up and when he sees the cuts he barely registers that she's saying "I'm sorry" as she jerks away from him and cradles her arm to her chest.

"You keep saying that." Puck says evenly, not allowing any anger or hurt to be reflected in his voice. "But, somehow, I don't think you're all that sorry because you keep doing shit like this." She looks down and he doesn't wait for her to answer before he gets into the shower.

There's a good chance she'll leave while he's in the shower and he won't get to say his piece, but he needs to calm himself down before he says anything else. He takes his time letting the heat of the shower spray relax him and soothe his somewhat aching muscles. Plaza or not, a floor is still a floor and his back doesn't appreciate it much. He's shell-shocked and speechless when he steps back into the room and finds Rachel lying flat on her back staring at the ceiling.

"You're still here." He states dumbly after staring at her for several minutes. She doesn't look at him or say anything for a while. When she does speak, the speech he has planned goes right out the window.

"Why do you care so much, Noah?" She brings on arm up behind her head like a pillow and places the other over abdomen but keeps her gaze firmly on the ceiling. "We've known each other since we were two years old and we've never been particularly close friends, I mean… I was with your best friend for half of high school; my own mother adopted Beth and you barely acknowledged me. Why do you care now what I'm doing or how I'm living my life?"

"Because after knowing what I know, I would hate myself if I just walked away." His answer is immediate and comes to him with no real thought process. "I mean, I hate myself all the time because I don't feel like I've done shit to help you and lord knows I'm trying."

"I don't know if you recall this or not, Noah, but I never_ asked_ you to help me."

"You shouldn't have to!" Puck doesn't mean to yell, really, but he's heard her say she doesn't want or need help over and over again for months now. Sometimes it's because she's too proud to admit how far things have gotten and sometimes it's because she honestly doesn't realize she has a problem and he just can't take it anymore. "Jesus, Rachel, you think I _want _to see you do this shit to yourself? This is the first I've seen you and you weren't doing something stupid; snorting lines, huffing shit I've never even heard of, half the times I've been here you were high as goddamn kite and you had to go and do _that_? You have so much going for you, and you're talented beyond comprehension. I get that you didn't get what you've always wanted but what about that is worth ruining your life over?"

"You don't understand, Noah. You've had everything handed to you on a silver platter and you don't even deserve it." Her words sting a lot more than they should, but she kind of has a point. He didn't ask for the life he has, but who was he to question the cards fate had dealt him? "Is it so wrong that I just want to escape for a while? Forget that I'm never going to get the only thing I ever wanted? I just feel numb every single day, Noah. Singing fixed that in high school but it doesn't help anymore. If anything, it's a reminder that I'm never enough."

"So you shoot up and carve yourself instead? That makes a whole lot of fucking sense, Rachel."

Rachel's crying now and he doesn't even try to stop her as she storms out of the hotel. She's right; she didn't ask for his help so maybe he should just leave her alone. Let her walk out and figure things out on her own if that's what she wants.

* * *

His resolve to "just leave her alone" lasts all of two weeks before he finds himself dialing her number and asking her out to lunch. She agrees, but her "yeah, ok, sure" gives him the impression that she's doing so under protest.

When he sees her, she looks tired and her hair is messy, as if she's just rolled out of bed and she doesn't even speak to him when she sits down at his table. She picks up a menu and scans over it for about seven seconds before she puts it down again. She's sitting there for probably ten more minutes before the waitress comes over and asks if she can take their order. When she recognizes Puck, he spends almost half an hour taking pictures and signing autographs and completely dodging questions about Rachel. After it's over, he sees the look on her face and he'd give anything to be invisible to the world.

"That should be me." She doesn't sound upset or anything, just as tired as she looks.

"One day, when you love yourself enough to stop hurting yourself the way you are, it _will_ be. You can argue all you want, but I'm not leaving you alone until you're singing from the rooftops or whatever." He hopes he sounds reassuring, because it's all he's got to offer for now. Her eyes water, but she doesn't shed a single tear and for the first time since he's started coming to see her, she gives him a full-on Rachel Berry smile so he figures they're finally moving in the right direction.

**Thank you so much for the reviews and alerts! I didn't think I'd get much of a response from this, so thank you! This one is relatively short, but I'm already hard at work on Part Three which, I think, is going to be the best of the three. It picks up in March 2019 and will be a lot longer than the first two parts. I started writing that one first, actually. Anyway, enough with the long A/N. Let me know what you think. Inspiration for this part came from Lady Antebellum's "One Day You Will", if you'd like to check that out.**


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